This collection of poems is taken from those written over the last two years, up to May of this year, 1996. Most were composed during a residence in northern Northland. During that time we often had to drive down for business to Auckland, staying in the city for several days at a time. The contrasting attractions of both these environments proved creative.

Another creative source is the tension between that part of me that is celebratory, and that part that is depressive. In the one I am intrigued by life, and in the other irritated by it. This polarity finds expression in a religious faith, which is pervasively present in all my poetry, though in different guises.

For many reasons, mostly to do with personal freedom, I prefer life in the city, so these poems, though often romantic, do not reflect an imagery of ugly urban set against pure rural. I profoundly enjoy the country, but also much appreciate living amongst many people.

As we now live in Auckland, urban themes predominate. My southern origins are sometimes evident. The wide range of poems in this volume is deliberately chosen, to represent a broadness of interest and attention. This seems important to me at present.

My thanks to Miriel Kyle and Catherine Mair, for patiently editing this collection. Nothing included in it has appeared in a commercial publication, but quite a few of the poems have previously seen print in 'Spin' and in 'Micropress N.Z.'

Julian Oliver, my nephew, created the front cover, and, for reasons they will understand, the book is dedicated to Mary and Lindsay Johnson of Kaikohe.

It's a still life:
curtains hanging,
bed made,
fruit in the bowl.
The clock's ticking.

I leave,
cleansed, refreshed.
Before me wintry west
and narcissistic night.
I shrink,
and half decide to stay,
hanging at the door,
loyal to the last convention,
fearing loss,
frightened
at the frightful chance
of gain.

On Monday morning,
as soon as the library opens,
I go straight to 'RETURNS'.
I'm sorry, I say,
but all the books I last borrowed
have disappeared.
Name please, the man asks,
and how many?
Thirteen, I say. Due today. 1 romance,2 Eng Lit,4 novels,2 S.F.1 biography,& 3 from Philosophy.
And you've lost them?
No, 1 say. They've disappeared.
Same thing.
Not in the least, I say.
he looks at me
as though I'm a damaged volume.
Which is as might be.

Tell it all, he sighs,
to say he's heard it all before.
But he hasn't.

I begin:
We were on holiday.
We went out last Sunday
to take some fish
to a friend at Koke.
Koke? he asks.
Yes, I tell him,
in the Hokianga,
on the North Shore.
We cut across country
through Back River there,
and at the end of the day,
on our way back,
we took a wrong turn
and came out at Kareponia.

They're important for the evidence,
I explain.
They locate us.
Because of this, you see,
we had to drive back
down State Highway Ten.
Then, as we looked ahead,
we saw that the peninsula had gone.
That's where our beach was,
our batch was,
I tell him.
It had gone.
It wasn't there.

How do you know that? He asks.
We waited a while,
and it didn't come back, I say.
How do you know it wasn't there?
Did you test to see?
How do you test something
that isn't there? I reply.
I'm very patient.

So is he.
He has no choice.
He thinks a bit,
and says, with a smile:
We must assume, I suppose,
that your books
have been taken
by God.
Indeed, I agree.
Nothing else
would have the power.
And what if I don't
believe in God?
Don't worry, I say.
Just have faith.

Have faith in a God
who takes library books!
He's angry.
The incident has to be defined,
I observe, mildly,
with dignity.
Call it an act of God.
You don't have to believe in God
to believe in the things God does.

He's angrier,
and I'm in a lot of trouble.
The Peninsula hasn't come back.
Some farms and some people
and a meter reader from the power board
are still missing,
but it's the books
that are the bother.
I'm under suspicion,
and they're giving me
a hefty fine.

It pushes up unlooked-for from the ground,
forgotten for a season, hardly known.
With unexpected strength it makes its way
against all obstacles that overlay.
Invisible mycelia from the soil,
that reach out far in search of nourishment
and flourish in the basement of the being,
combine as if from air to make the fruit,
and form a thing corporeal, complex, good.
Once grown it spreads its spores about, and then
Dissolves, and turns invisible again.
Though living, it will go unseen until
the season's right; cool weather brings the rain,
to start the growth, and make its presence plain.

Shining,
on the corner of the avenue.
First finished
it shivers, empty
in the winter sun.
Orange tiles
and yellow weather boards.
No paths, no fences.
A small shed out the back.
Building rubbish erupts around.

One door out,
another in the front.
Three bedrooms.
One room for living.

2.

No paths, no fences.
Grass all around
and into next door,
which has two bedrooms
and no windows yet.
We look into it,
and wonder who will come.
Ours is bigger, better,
and holds us warmly,
with holes in the carpet.

My mother worries
about the hole in the carpet
and her stomach ulcer.
It might trip the doctor.

We make gardens and lawns,
signs of our worth,
outside evidence
of the home we've made,
controlled and tended,
a signal and request
to the middle-classed
in the new streets
at the end of ours,
where the berry farms had been.

Paddocks and bushes bulldozed into
muddied wounds that rot for weeks
until surveyors come to mark out
sizeable, saleable sections.

4.

Every time it's Christmas
there are rows.
The money's gone.
Work parties, drink –
we don't know why.
There are rows
up and down the street.
Ours is at night
when we're hanging decorations
in the passage.

It's new every time.
There's hope in it.
A sort of dawn;
first in a different day.

You say you love me much, my dear,
But do you love? I rather fear
You know, and much misuse.
You say you truly read my face,
And every line, you say, embrace,
And oft of me enthuse
That I'm an open book to you,
My very soul laid to your view;
Why then this trust abuse?
You say that now you know me well,
But when I ask you cannot tell –
Your love I must refuse.
I fear I'm but your oft-bought book,
Scanned and conned and soon forsook,
Much bartered and perused.

Don't get me wrong.
I like them.
When they turn up
I feel good about it.

So when Liz says:
go down to the Hot Bread Shop
and get some buns;
I've got nothing
to give them
for tea.
I go.

She walks in before me.
It's not much of a shop,
but when I see who she is
there's no dirt,
no cooking smells.
There's incense in the air.
No body else,
just She
upon a forest floor
with parroquets
in sunlight.

Liz asks after:
What happened to you?
Did you go to the pub?
Weren't you thinking straight?
They were our guests,
you know.

Throw them in the river.
We don't want those types
in our city. We didn't fight
two world wars for louts
like that. Our lads didn't die
so this sort of thing could
go on. We fought for a de­
cent society. They're dregs.

7. breakfast. Rawhiti.

A shower in the wind.
We're on the verandah,
crowded.

Everything's wet.
Mist whips the burnt hills,
snaking.

He brings the food around:
bread and saveloys.
Ash drops from his cigarette.

They gave him three years.
He's been gone for months,
but he's all over the place,
everywhere I look,
with her, in her,
bruising still.

She sits in silence at the table,
thinking what to do,
she says.

I look out the door,
over the gorse and wild kanuka
to the sea at the bottom of this world.
His hill's there,
a green breast by the beach,
terraced from a time before this law.

Scattered, seeded from the coast,
islands sleep in powdered sunlight,
soothed by the monotony
of early summer day.

He farms the scrub;
prohibited produce,
hidden in the taller stuff.

Inside, he's here,
in the photos,
smart couple and three kids,
on dresser, window-sill and wall,
in the plaque he carved
when last in jail.
His are the Most Promising Player trophies,
tarnished , dusty, insect-spotted,
lost from love,
forgotten in the crises.
On the wall
a tiger-rug from Singapore,
prowling from a bamboo thicket,
front paw raised in papier-mache limpness.

What can I say?
He's ringing every day
from the prison down the line,
and she can't pay the bill.
I just want to get on with things,
she says.

Say no.

She looks, and smiles.
I see my stupidity.
A sad game this,
hunting and hiding,
with pain in it,
but it's their life,
ail they've got,
their only defiance of those tricks
poverty plays.

There's quietness in her,
silence on her face.
Say no to him?
If she says that
the telephone won't snarl any more.

His every word is worth a thousand dollars.

She wants him stalking
through the thickets of her mind,
as present as the wind
that's always blowing here,
hunting her on wire and line.
The land, the sea,
the growl of the sea
is his.
Every turn of fate's arranged by him,
she hopes.
She'll never say no to that.

and come,
vast horses in the strobe-struck smoke,
stampeding all this startled crowd
by prancing in the flickering fire-work glare.
But just a glimpse.
When all have run,
and only panic's left,
and darkness,
and rubbish strewn in horror on the grass,

they go to rest,
half sorry for their fun,
like adults who,
when wild play is done,
see their children looking on,
amused.

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About the Editor

I've published five poetry collections: City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal’s Book (2002), To Terezín (2007), Celanie (2012), and A Clearer View of the Hinterland (2014), as well as six books of fiction, most recently Kingdom of Alt (2010). I work as a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Massey University (ORCID ID: 0000-0002-3988-3926).